Sweet Potato Kisses were one of my favorite desserts that my grandmother would prepare for us.
The receipt of her potato kisses:
You boil a small potato with the jacket on and cook until done.
Peel the potato, mash it up, and roll it out.
Add powdered sugar and peanut butter to the center.
Roll all ingredients into a ball and slice them into pieces.
During the holidays, my grandmother would spend hours making our Christmas presents.
She was very handy with a needle and thread. She would make sock monkeys, rag dolls, and dresses for us; every stitch was sewn in love.
My grandmother had very little income, but she was able to make it stretch.
She always had a beautifully decorated Christmas tree that would light up any room.
When she plugged the Christmas lights into the wall sockets, they would start to bubble, and the angel hair and icicles would gleam.
She would make a pot of popcorn that we would string. She would cut construction paper into strips that we would glue together to create a rope to string on her tree.
My grandfather loved to smoke Prince Albert's tobacco. When he ran out, he would give us grandkids a nickel, and we would walk to the store to buy him some smoking tobacco and white paper.
I loved to watch my grandfather take the white papers and roll his tobacco inside.
While playing outside, I once stepped on a honey bee barefoot. My grandfather pulled the stinger out of my foot and covered the swollen spot with some of his Prince Albert tobacco.
I know my grandfather had a kind heart, or my grandmother would not have married my grandfather. As the years passed, my grandfather became increasingly dependent on alcohol.
When I was young, I remember sitting next to my grandfather on the sofa as he told scary stories.
The one I remember most was about bloody bones.
The story would end with my grandfather saying,
He would go up one step, then two, and continue counting the steps, until suddenly he would shout, "Got you." We would jump up in fright.
My grandfather loved the feel of the earth with his hands. For many years, my grandparents maintained a vegetable garden that not only provided food for them but also sold the produce for income.
My grandparents' backyard was filled with apple, peach, pear, and plum trees, which my grandmother would pick and use to make jams and jellies. They sold the access for cash, which was their source of income.
My grandfather had one Chinaberry Tree that produced chinaberries, of which I never knew the use, and they stunk to high heaven.
We were forbidden to climb in the fruit trees, but that never stopped us.
My grandfather loved to tease us; he would tell us that if we swallowed a seed from any plant, it would grow inside of us.
It was my grandmother who introduced me to God and the Church.
I would ride with my cousin and grand Church to a small Church on the north side of Sheffield.
Mr. Ulman, a member of the Church, volunteered to take my grandmother and the Church Children to Church, as he passed by her house on his way to Church.
I'm unsure if Mr. Ulman was single, but his wife never attended Church. He was an older man, so he could have been a churchgoer.
If not for Mr. Ulman, my grandmother would have had to walk to Church.
In Sunday class, I learned about Daniel's Church, the Lion's Den, Adam and Eve, Noah building the Ark, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and how the angel walked inside the blazing furnace with them.
We were given a pamphlet each week, which included a picture of that week's lesson, that we could take home. I treasured this.
After Sunday school class, we would reassemble in the auditorium for Church.
There would be someone playing the piano, or someone playing a squeezebox accordion.
It was terrific, the music that the machine would belt out. A man would stand while compressing and expanding the bellows while pressing buttons on the right side of the accordion.
One of my favorite Christian songs we sang during service was "WHEN THE ROLL IS CALLED UP YONDER."
The preacher would give a long sermon and then be dismissed, as would everyone.
I remember one Sunday night after services, Mr. Ullman was driving us home when the right door on the passenger's side of his car flew open. When Mr. Ullman turned left at the red light on North Montgomery Avenue, my cousin flew out right into the street.
Thank goodness we were not going too fast. She only had a few scratches on her elbow and hands.
My mom's parents relied on my dad to take them places, and my grandparents couldn't afford a car.
When my grandmother wanted to visit her sister, who lived on Penny Lane in Huntsville, everyone would load into my parents' station wagon, and we would ride to Huntsville.
It would be a day trip, and my aunt would prepare a nice meal for our visit.
My grandmother's father and stepmother lived in Town Creek.
When my grandmother wanted to visit her father, she and my grandfather would take the train from Sheffield to Town Creek.
The Sheffield Depot was within walking distance of my grandparents' house.
In fact, the train tracks were so close that when I spent the night at my grandparents' house, I could hear the trains blowing their horns to warn people they were approaching as I lay in bed trying to sleep.
Sometimes, our whole family would pile into our station wagon, along with my grandparents, and we would all ride to Town Creek.
I loved to visit my great-grandfather. He was a kind-hearted soul, a jolly man, and very involved with us kids.
I remember my grandfather showing us how to put a straw stick into a hole, wiggle the straw, and we would pull out a worm he called Chicken Chokers.
Chicken Choppers are larvae of tiger beetles that ambush predators of other insects. They lie in wait in their burrows, their heads flush with the soil's surface.
The chickens do more harm to the larvae than the grubs.
My great-grandparents lived in an old discarded military dining trailer they had purchased from the army.
In the middle of the trailer were three steps leading to the front door.
Once inside, to the right was a large, round, oak dining table with a half-round bench encircling it.
A couple of steps down was the living room, which had a couple of rockers. Next to the rockers was their bed, and standing just out from the wall was a coal heater.
The kitchen was built to cook for a large crowd of men at the very end of mess time.
My great-grandfather was visiting his son in Lakeland, Florida, when he passed away at the age of eighty. His body was returned to Alabama, where he was buried.
The first funeral that I ever remember attending was that of my great-grandfather.
